In the middle of April 2012 Osmania University (OU) witnessed an unusual violence on the issue of eating beef. A section of dalit students’ were demanding that University Hostels should have beef on the menu. They also organized a beef festival in which a large number of students ate beef biryani. The festivity was not to last long as the ABVP, the student wing of RSS, created rampage, a student was knifed, a bus was torched and ruckus was created in the university. The Vice Chancellor of OU knelt to the aggressive cow protectors and said that beef will not be introduced in the menu.

Just a month ago the in the Kurmaguda area of Hyderabad a group of youth associated with Hindu communal group were arrested for throwing beef inside a Hanuman temple, who later spread the word that Muslims have defiled our temple and turned their guns against the hapless minority, torched few buses. A little while ago the ruling BJP government in Madhya Pradesh had introduced a bill prohibiting the consumption of beef in the state. Other BJP ruled states in one form or the other are introducing legislations, which prohibit the slaughter of cow.

The place where Muslims were butchered mercilessly under the Chief mastership of Modi the ‘care of cow’ has gone one step up and state has opened centers for cataract and dental surgery of the Mother Cow. The goal of the Hindu state of Gujarat under Modi is to open more such centers so that Mother cow does not have to travel more than three kilometers for accessing these services, this while innumerable victims of Gujarat carnage, are yet to recover from the trauma of the carnage, aided by the apathy of state.

So far most of these legislations and the accompanying propaganda have been directed primarily against Muslim minority, which is demonized as the butchers and eaters of ‘our holy cow’. The OU episode shows the other side of the agenda of cow politics. While there had been cases of murders of dalits on the pretext of skinning a dead cow (Jhajjar, Haryana) and VHP defending the act saying that cow is too holy to spare the dalits. Still primarily it is the Muslim community which has been the target of propaganda emanating from RSS- Combine stable.

With dalits, the other target of RSS combine, the issue is not just of identity. It is related to the livelihood and food habits of dalits-Adivasis. The cow as a symbol of RSS combine has been in the fore since the rise of communal politics during the British rule. As such the cow has been in the forefront of communal battles of upper castes in India earlier also. The Brahmanical reaction to rise of Buddhism was countered by putting forward the symbol of cow. Some Dalit scholars hold that cow was cleverly chosen and one of the reasons cow stole a march over the equally useful buffalo was its color. It is not a coincidence that the dark skinned people have faced the wrath of the elite in one form or the other.

The scholars of Vedic India Prof D.N.Jha, Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane and champion of social justice Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, all have pointed out that cow was verily eaten during Vedic period. With the rise of agricultural society, and need for preserving cattle wealth; the religions-ideologies promoting non-violence in the form of Jainism and Buddhism came up and campaigned against senseless sacrifice of cow in Vedic yagnas (sacrificial ritual).

The current communal politics has twin agenda. At surface it wants to subjugate the minorities and is using the emotive issues to create a mass hysteria against minorities. Lord Ram and Cow are the major tools of communal political mobilization. While the supporters of RSS combine generously donate for the welfare of cow, it is the dalits who practically take care of the grazing and other needs of Holy mother. Last some time a pressure is being built up culturally and politically that beef eating communities give up this integral part of their habit.

The food patterns are changing under intense propaganda still as of now the consumption of beef in India is higher than that of mutton and chicken put together. Its export is also a major business. The RSS combine on one side aims to subjugate the Minorities and on the other wants to maintain the status quo of social relationship of caste and gender. These are subtle and overt maneuvers implemented through political and cultural conduits. Attitude of communal politics to dalits has been a complex one. The anti dalit violence of 1980 against reservation, the anti OBC violence of 1986 against promotion of OBCs in jobs, and its strengthening of Kamandal politics (Rath Yatra and the Babri demolition) in response to Mandal were a part of this.

At another level the strategy is to co-opt dalits into Hindutva fold. From middle of decades of 1980s RSS has activated Samajik Samrasta Manch (Social Harmony Forum) which has been mobilizing dalits around that. The Gurus like Sri Sri Ravishanker have been saying that there should be harmony between upper and lower caste, while he keeps quiet about the prevalent social injustice in various forms. The aim of the communal politics is to maintain the status quo of caste and gender.

Through Samajik Samrasta Manch the message of undermining caste atrocities and social injustice is actively propagated. Supplementing this is the cultural assertion and imposition of elite norms on the whole society. Food habits are a part of culture and for large sections of dalits and Adiviasis beef had been an integral part of their food. Incidentally there is a vigorous campaign to promote vegetarianism and denigrate non vegetarian food practices.

While the large section of dalits is struggling for social and economic justice, a section of dalits is undergoing the process of sanskritization as well. It is in this light that the symbols of dalit assertion in the matters of food habits and cultural expressions are being attacked openly. The compromised state apparatus is not able to stand up to this onslaught of communal politics to preserve the social and democratic rights of dalits and other marginalized sections of society, be it the matters of their physical security, questions of equity and food habits. It is a blatant attempt to manipulate culture, to impose elite norms, through influencing the food habits, which are so much cultural in their nature.

It seems Mother Cow may be the major emotive weapon to be used for the politics deriving its legitimacy from Hindu religions’ identity. Interestingly it reveals the twin goals of this politics. At surface it is to reduce the minorities to a status of second class citizen and at deeper level to subjugate dalits at social, political and cultural level.

(Ram Puniyani was a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai and works keenly on social issues. He is the author of three books including Communal Politics: An illustrated primer.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy.

“India is a corrupt country, but I’m not part of the corruption” — this is what each one of us believes. Even a traffic cop who takes a bribe doesn’t think that he is a corrupt man. He believes that he is only doing what is necessary to sustain his family with dignity; after all, his salary is really quite low, his working conditions are really quite bad, his level of frustration is really quite high, and the cost of living really is genuinely going up! So, when a motorist who breaks a signal by mistake offers him a hundred bucks, why shouldn’t he take it? Besides, his bosses and colleagues may treat him like a pariah if he tries to be the only pure one among them, and that is a big problem.

At the other end of the spectrum, the wealthy businessman believes that he is doing nothing by bankrolling ministers, bureaucrats, top-cops and political party bosses; having friends in the right places is necessary for removing unnecessary obstacles. Funding the decision-makers is an unavoidable cost of doing big business – a sort of indirect tax imposed on rich businessmen.

Team Anna terms the parliament and the state legislatures as the epicenter of corruption. That may well be true. But ask yourself, how else can it be? How can a career politician maintain his family if he refuses to accept the friendship of wealthy people? To even be considered for a party post – say, the general secretary of the Congress party in the state — one must spend all the productive hours of his day mobilizing hundreds of party workers for meetings, rallies etc. For this, he needs substantial daily cash-flows for chai-nashta,pamphlets, flex banners etc. The most available party workers will be those without a full-time job or a business. So, people who occupy party positions are either moneyed people or those with rich friends willing to invest in them… and quite often, a combination of both. And, as no friendship is a one way street, benefits just naturally flow towards the rich friends who provide party funds.

Team Anna, Baba Ramdev and their diehard supporters don’t appear to be applying their mind to altering these ground realities. The aam janta is happy with their oversimplification of the discussion about corruption into an us-versus-them theme – as if life is a movie with readymade heroes, villains and victims. Their theory is: the guys chanting ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ and going on hunger strikes are the good guys, and the other lot – sitting in government offices all over the country — are the bad guys. The bad guys are afraid of one one thing – Jan Lokpal. So, if you arm-twist these bad guys in parliament to pass the Jan Lokpal bill, then the good guys will suddenly be in power, and all the bad guys will be running helter-skelter to save their skin, and the public can go home happy that good has once again triumphed over evil. Oh, how we love happy endings!

We need to see a more sophisticated understanding of the sordid reality around us. And for such an understanding, we need to first let go of our righteous anger and indignation, and invite the “corrupt people” to join us at the table for discussion. Only in this way can we gain the collective insight and wisdom needed for solving the problems that India faces.

WE ALL HAVE INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF CORRUPTION

Each of us – whether great or small — is an insider in some knowledge domains, and an outsider in most domains. Many of us are intimately aware of how and where exactly wrongdoings are carried out, and by whom. But we remain silent, and don’t speak the truth because we don’t consider it important or worthwhile to speak out. We want other people to speak first and pay the price; we ourselves wish to continue our lives in comfort. By our silence and indifference, or by our lack of initiative to blow the whistle, we become part of the great conspiracy of silence.

The theory propagated by Team Anna is that India is being stabbed in the heart by crooked parliamentarians. While this is not untrue, a larger and more widespread truth is that we are ourselves inflicting on India a death by a thousand cuts. We the People are part of a great big conspiracy of silence, and the country’s only hope lies in our breaking this conspiracy of silence by speak whatever we know. Here are some examples of our knowledge, and our participation in the conspiracy of silence:

• · SMALL-TIME LAWYERS, JUDICIAL CLERKS & HABITUAL LITIGANTS have intimate knowledge of some things about court functioning that even eminent lawyers and judges may not know – for example how the order of cause-lists are changed at the last minute, how important petitions are held up for petty clerical reasons, and how public notaries, public prosecutors, magistrates and judges of the higher judiciary make money on the side. Eminent jurists may be ignorant of such things, because they operate at a different level.

• · HAWKERS, CONSTABLES & LOITERERS who stand on the street all day have intimate knowledge of how to create a hawker territory, and how to predict the movement of anti-encroachment municipal vans. They are keenly aware of the effects of change of duty assignment in the municipal and police administration, and how new and zealous officers are routinely “settled”, and by whom. The man on the street knows things about the real India that would make Planning Commission chiefs and World Bank economists prostrate themselves in humility. They may not have the paperwork to prove what they way, but even photographs and videos taken on cellphones can often reveal so much!

• · IAS AND IPS OFFICERS – in service and retired – turned into activists, they could single-handedly change the political and business environment in our country if they revealed what goes on in the government. (If you think that civil society activists or RTI activists know much about corruption, forget it!) Corrupt people in the establishment won’t know where to hide their faces if these people went public!

• · PLANT MANAGERS, PURCHASE MANAGERS & STOREKEEPERS in both private and public sector concerns have intimate knowledge of unsafe industrial practices, adulteration, improper maintenance and substandard materials. Quite often, they may voice their concern to their superiors and peers, but that is ineffective in curbing the wrongdoings. To break the conspiracy of silence, they need to come out with the truth before the public.

• · ARCHITECTS – both well-known ones and ordinary ones –have in their minds a detailed map of how land grabs and building scams are carried out. But they are not telling, because they are the guys who make it all happen.

• · LAW FIRMS ENGAGED BY BIG BUILDERS have a thorough knowledge of the illegalities that they help to commit and cover up. They are not telling because they are making indecent amounts of money. If one or two professionals tell their story with documents, big names in the industry will run around looking for fig leaves to hide their shame.

• · CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS are to the world of business what gynecologists are to the world of women; they have their fingers deep inside whatever is kept hidden from the world. Only CAs have any understanding of the complicated maze of ownership patterns of many groups of companies, consisting of dozens of family trusts, holding companies, individual directors etc. Through such networks, Birla and Ambani family members may hold a larger stake in some Tata companies than the Tata family itself – and vice-versa. Hidden in the maze of group companies, associate companies (subsidiaries), foreign collaborators based in tax-haven countries etc. etc., there is a whole “corporate India” whose economy is many times larger than that of the India we know. In the public mind, “corporate” means clean and law-abiding; in actual fact, corporate entities have a lot of criminality, and massive white-collar crimes are perpetrated by employees who act under improper authorization.

• · PRIESTS & TRUSTEES OF TEMPLE TRUSTS & CHARITIES, especially those controlled by politicians receive large and inexplicable donations in cash, jewelry etc round the year. In the weeks and days before the last date to file tax returns, CAs of all sizes are busy calling one another and making adjustments between businesses that have too much cash, and want to bring some of it on the records, and others who have too much income on their books, and want to make it disappear from their books by conversion into cash. Temples and charitable trusts are massive conduits of black-money, and no place – be it the Shirdi temple or the Siddhivinayak temple – is too sacred to engage in such dealings. If only the priests and trustees were to speak up with specific examples and documents!

• · FIXERS AT PMO, CMO, MANTRALAYA, MINISTERS RESIDENCES, PARTY OFFICES & other power centres do the complicated job of getting various licenses and government permissions. These people may be professional architects, lawyers, CAs, journalists, entrepreneurs, or managing committee members of well-known chambers of commerce — but this tribe of people knows how to get things done for love or for money. And it isn’t only individual fixers, but corporates – often called consultants — that make things happen. Nira Radia’s Vaishnavi Communications was accidentally outed and had to close down, but there are dozens of Vaishnavis still out there, flying below everybody’s radar. By hiring retired IAS and IPS officers and friends and relatives of MLAs, MPs and ministers, they exert a great influence on policy decisions, key appointments etc.

• · PERSONAL ASSISTANTS OF PEOPLE IN KEY GOVERNMENT POSTS are intimately aware of “indecent proposals”. For example, it is an open secret that the Registrar of Cooperatives and other officials are routinely paid Rs 25,000 per flat undergoing redevelopment, just for attending the meeting for video-taping the consent. Otherwise, that crucial meeting will get endlessly delayed, causing huge loss to the builder. If insiders in such departments blew the whistle on their bosses and colleagues, a major clean-up could happen, and misgovernance could be brought under control.

• · MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS are all bound together by a network of kickbacks. Every time your family doctor recommends tests worth Rs 1000, he earns Rs 400 to 600 by way of commission from the pathology lab. Whenever your general physician refers you to a super-specialist who charges, say, Rs 50,000, your family doctor gets Rs 2000 or more. And if he recommends hospitalization which makes you — or your medical insurance company — poorer by Rs 50,000, your friendly and ever-so-caring family doctor becomes richer by Rs 10,000 or more.

• · PANELISTS OF WELL-KNOWN HOSPITALS are given monthly growth targets to fulfill in terms of bed-occupancy; that means that your super-specialist or consulting surgeon is under performance pressure to put people under the knife, like so many sheep sent to the slaughterhouse. Many doctors admit in private conversations that many surgeries are avoidable. We are waiting for some doctors to go public about this shocking abuse of our trust with revealing internal documents and correspondence.

• · AUTHORIZED WORKSHOPS OF VARIOUS AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS are under performance pressure. In order to attain quarterly growth targets, the auto companies try to accelerate the turnover of their spare parts by forcing workshops to achieve numerical quarterly targets for items such as car batteries, bearings and bushings. As a consequence, even if your batter and other parts are quite ok, the supervisor who draws up a job card and estimate tends to say things like, “Sir, your battery performance is slightly weak, and the bushings of the rear wheel suspension has become a bit hard due to age. Nothing urgent, but the vehicle performance will definitely improve if you change these whenever you are financially comfortable.” A lot of men feel that their manhood is being called into question, and respond with, “Uh, ok, change them. How much will it all cost?” In this way, the supervisor and auto mechanics makes you cough up a lot of money for change of battery and a whole suspension job. They earn “performance incentives” as a percentage of the cost of spare parts and labour charges, and they also earn promotions. Most reputed garages are part of this malpractice. Hopefully soon, some insiders will spill the beans with statistics, quarterly reports, and internal documents.

• · PR AGENCIES “manage” the news that appears in the media in very subtle ways. Paid news isn’t a single monolithic phenomenon; it is a mixture of event management and celebrity handling, clever photographs, sponsored articles, and personal friendships with sub-editors, editors and proprietors of newspapers. It’s a smooth job that goes on 24×7, and PR agencies are low-profile players who cultivate good relations with individual journalists on the one hand and corporate houses on the other hand, and act as go-betweens without proper authorizations and controls.

WE MUST FACILITATE WHISTLEBLOWERS, BECOME THEIR PROTECTIVE CLOAK

Corruption is not only in the government, it is in all spheres of life. For our battle against corruption to become widespread, we need to bring insiders from various fields of knowledge to the discussion table. To truly change India from the inside, we must engage and facilitate such people, and not alienate them with name-calling. Because, only people with privileged information can convincingly disclose how the country’s various democratic institutions are being subverted, and only they can enable us to plug the leakages in the system. Without the intelligence inputs provided by them, our anti-corruption campaigns will only be so much sloganeering, wishful thinking and shooting in the dark.

We must encourage insiders in various domains of knowledge to speak up, with the support of documents that support their story. Some may want to come out into the open with their names, but many of them will want the protective cloak of confidentiality before they reveal all… and we must provide them that level of comfort. We must be their shield and their mouthpieces.

INDIVIDUAL ACTIVISTS & JOURNALISTS CAN GIVE REALISTIC PROTECTION to a whistleblower, more than any Whistleblowers’ Act. If a few dozen of us made ourselves publicly available as contact points and facilitators for whistleblowers, across the country, our collective effect would probably surpass CVC, CBI and CAG all put together. There are already quite a few of us, and this tribe of facilitators is growing. Let there be many more; let the tribe increase!

(Krishnaraj Rao is a prominent Right-to-Information activist and journalist based in Mumbai. He can be reached at thebravepedestrian@gmail.com)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy. 

Sachin Tendulkar not Bat RTI info on fine he paid for Bandra bungalow.Sachin Tendulkar Refuse to give any type of information under RTI Act where he had moved into the bungalow without procuring the mandatory OC. Following a controversy over the “illegal occupancy”, the Master Blaster paid a penalty to the civic authority.

Master blaster and MP-in-waiting Sachin Tendulkar has no-balled public disclosure of his Bandra bungalow details. In particular, Tendulkar does not want the fine he paid for occupying his new home without an occupation certificate to be revealed under the RTI (Right to Information) Act. ”In Sachin Tendulkar’s case, he has objected to information pertaining to his home being revealed under RTI to a third party,” the BMC said in a reply to me. I had asked the civic body for information about the fine levied on Tendulkar and the amount he paid for occupying his multi-storey bungalow on Perry Cross Road at Bandra. “Civic officials have violated the RTI Act by refusing to furnish the details bcz when any case where levies charge, that doucment automatically Become a part of Record”.Last year Tendulkar had moved into the bungalow without procuring the mandatory OC. Following a controversy over the “illegal occupancy”, the cricketer paid a penalty to the civic authority. By Misusing the The 11 (1) Rule of RTI Act “The BMC asked Tendulkar whether the information sought should be provided to the applicant. Then He  objected to furnishing of details of the fine imposed on him. Therefore, the former municipal commissioner decided against the applicant.

In this case question arises why Bmc made this RTI Third Party case bcz levied charge itself a part of official Record & Record couldn’t have Third Party claim even he or she involved. Our  NGO Athak Seva Sangh wrote to Municipal Commissioner & Complaint that Bmc officer unnecessary divert Rti plea. We also demand that if Tendulkar can get OC after pay levies then throughout Mumbai apply Tendulkar Pattern to Sanction OC to Societies & Buildings who r unable to get OC same like Tendulkar. We waiting for justice & excepted Quick move by Municipal Commissioner.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy.

India has more than 10,500 drug makers with a domestic turnover of nearly $9bn.

Yet, something is rotten with the way drugs are tested and sold in the country.

A parliamentary panel investigation has found serious issues with the way approvals for foreign drugs are given and clinical trials are being carried out. Here are some of the startling findings:

• Of the 42 drugs picked up randomly for scrutiny by the panel, the health ministry could not provide any documents on three drugs – pefloxacin, lomefloxacin and sparfloxacin. Reason: their files were untraceable. The documents related to sponsors, clinical trials, overseas regulatory status, names of experts consulted and post-marketing safety reports. “All these drugs had been approved on different dates and different years creating doubt if disappearance was accidental,” says the report, adding that all these were “controversial” drugs: one was never marketed in the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and other countries, while the other two were discontinued. All three drugs are being sold in India.
• Of the 39 drugs on which information was available, the panel found that in the case of 18 drugs, adequate clinical trials had not been conducted – many of the drugs had been tested on fewer patients and in fewer hospitals than what is legally mandated.
• There are 13 drugs which were not sold in much of the developed world, and the report said none of these drugs “have any special or specific relevance to the medical needs of India”.
• In the case of 25 drugs, the opinion of medically qualified experts was not obtained before approval.
• A total of 31 new drugs, by the health ministry’s own admission, were approved between January 2008 and October 2010 without conducting clinical trials on Indian patients. The ministry says that the authorities have the power to approve drugs without clinical trials in the public interest. “No explanation,” the report says, “is available as to what constitutes public interest.”
• Every month, on average, the authorities say, one drug is approved in India without trials.
• A review of expert opinion on various drugs showed that an “overwhelming majority are recommendations based on personal perception without giving any hard scientific evidence or data”. More shockingly, the panel found adequate evidence to conclude that “many opinions were actually written by the invisible hands of drug manufacturers and experts merely obliged by putting their signatures”.
• The panel believes that there is “sufficient evidence to conclude that there is collusive nexus” between drug makers, authorities and some medical experts.

This is not all. The panel expresses concern over the continued sale of potentially harmful drugs in India years after such products were banned or withdrawn in developed countries and the prevalence of “sub-standard” – 7-8% of total sales – in the market. Is India condemned to becoming a dumping ground for drugs?

PS: The government has now announced an investigation into the workings of India’s main drug regulator, days after the panel’s report. Three experts have been appointed to “look at the scientific basis of approving new drugs without clinical trials” and recommend ways of improving the way the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSO) works. One report says that global drug makers could also face new US scrutiny following this damning 78-page report.

(This article was first published in BBC)

 The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy.

The Right to Education Act is discussed a lot but very few understand its provisions. There is overwhelming level of ignorance among politicians regarding the Act and its implications. Before I get into the nitty gritty of the subject, I wish to flag a few very relevant facts that should set the tone for the discussion on the RTE Act.

-  India has the largest illiterate population of any nation on earth.

- It is estimated that at least 35 million, and possibly as many as 60 million children aged 6-14 years are not in school.

- The country’s literacy rate has risen from 12% in 1947 to 75% in 2011- much below the world average literacy rate of 84%.

- The 2011 census indicated a 2001-2011 decadal growth of 9.2% which was slower than the growth in the previous decade.

- In 600,000 villages, the education of the young is in the hands of barely qualified ‘para teachers’

-According to experts, incompetent teaching staff is one of the main factors affecting literacy in India.

- It is estimated that there are over a lakh unrecognised schools in the country, maybe many more.  In the national capital, the number of unrecognised schools is estimated to be anything between 2500 to 10,000.

The data that I have given above was essentially to highlight the problems and issues that the RTE Act needed to address for fulfilling our founding fathers’ vision of universal literacy.  The RTE Act had two main objectives viz; a) guaranteeing right to free and compulsory education to all children and b) imparting quality education.  Has the Act provided the platform and impetus to fulfill these objectives?  Having closely scrutinized the Act as also the Supreme Court judgment on the issue, I have grave reservations regarding the key provisions in the Act.  The government has proposed a perfect but impossible solution to a burning problem-a formulation that is completely divorced from reality.  In passing such an Act it seems that the government has been afflicted by the Marie Antoinette syndrome.  Let me explain. During the critical food crisis in 1789 in France, when the then Queen Marie Antoinette was informed of the acute bread shortage in Paris, her laconic response was “Let them eat cake.”  Similarly, the various provisions in the RTE Act betray the government’s insensitivity and colossal ignorance of the facts on the ground.

The Act has enunciated a grand scheme whereby within 3 years only recognized institutions with certain minimum infrastructure will impart education in the country.  A laudable objective, no doubt, but impossible to achieve.  On the contrary, Sections 18 and 19 of the RTE Act if implemented would cause incalculable harm to primary education in the country.  The Act envisages that only schools that have the minimum teaching personnel and physical infrastructure that includes at least one classroom per teacher, a kitchen and playground, would henceforth be authorised to impart school education. At the present time when land prices have shot through the roof in cities, to conjure up a playground where there is none today is asking for the moon.  Quite clearly, the denizens in the Education Ministry are unaware or uncaring that the stringent stipulations in the Act will result in a large number of the unrecognised schools as also aided schools being closed down. In my view, the negative obsession to close down unrecognised schools before alternative avenues of primary education are available is an unpardonable crime.

It is apparent that in the government’s view, the unrecognised schools are an unmitigated evil.  It is estimated that out of the 6 lakh odd schools in the country, almost one-third are unrecognized.  What the government has conveniently forgotten is that since Independence, the unrecognized Schools have been filling in for the non-existent government schools. One commentator has attributed the rush for admission to unrecognised schools to the fact that standards in government schools are dismal, forcing parents to look for alternatives. The reality is that we have good and bad unrecognised schools in our midst.  The only fairly comprehensive study of unrecognised schools was done in Kerala some years ago.  According to this study in 2004 there were 2646 unrecognised schools in Kerala with about 3.5 lakh students.  The study arrived at the following assessment of unrecognized schools in Kerala;

“Most of the teachers are well-qualified and they impart good coaching to their students…Most of the schools…impart good education in every sense.  The school system provides employment to a large number of qualified unemployed persons as teaching and non-teaching staff.  The numbers of such unrecognised schools are increasing day by day.  As a result, numbers of students enrolled in aided schools are decreasing and it may affect the stability of the aided school system… Most of the teachers are well-qualified and impart good coaching…even though they are well qualified, they get very low salary.”  It is quite apparent that in Kerala, at least, the unrecognised schools are invaluable in imparting good education to the children, though; admittedly, the experience of other States could be quite different. However, what the RTE Act has done is to put all these organisations, the good and the bad, under threat.

As one who has experience of dealing with education department officials (my family runs a few schools in my hometown in UP),  I am deeply perturbed to see that the RTE Act, by giving absolute power to the Education Department and local bodies to make or mar unrecognised schools, will become the ideal tool for large-scale corruption.  Even when there was no specific law against unrecognised institutions, the school inspectors had to be ‘appeased’ even if the school had done nothing illegal.  Now with the RTE Act in force, the inspectors will have a free rein to force school authorities to do their bidding—a grim portent for the future.  I foresee a large number of undeserving schools getting recognition and a good number of meritorious schools closing down.

We must not forget that at present, between 35 million to 60 million children are not in school.  If the number of schools come down in number, as they certainly will, due to closure of unrecognised schools that do not comply with the stringent infrastructure standards, the nation’s goal of ensuring universal literacy would suffer a massive set back.  The RTE Act bases its formulations on the absurd premise that the recognized schools would not only be able to accommodate the students from schools that close down but also have room for the new entrants to school.  Can it get more absurd than this?  The consensus among experts is that government schools are generally not only overcrowded but impart a very poor standard of education.  Moreover, a recent study of 188 government run primary schools revealed that 59% of the schools had no drinking water facility and 89% no toilet facilities.  And yet ironically the government schools would be the most secure under the new dispensation envisaged in the RTE Act.

The most outrageous aspect of the RTE Act is that it treats select government schools as more equal than others, and seeks to insulate them from the upheavals triggered by implementation of the Act. By all accounts, the only government schools of a reasonable standard are the Kendriya Vidyalayas and the Navodaya Vidyalayas, which the Act has earmarked as the “specified category.” Significantly, vide section 5 , these schools are exempt  from accommodating children who seek transfer  from schools which have no provision for completion of elementary education. An Act that professes to strike a blow for egalitarianism and equal educational opportunities for all children has no business to accord preferential treatment to these schools.

According to the experts, inefficient teaching staff is one of the prime factors affecting literacy in India.  It may surprise you to know that the vital, life- moulding primary education in most of our 6 lakh odd villages is in the hands of barely educated ‘para teachers’.  The qualification for becoming a ‘para teacher’ or ‘contract’ teacher in most of the States is higher Secondary or even a Secondary pass, but in Rajasthan the qualification for the para teacher is 8th Standard for males and 5th standard for females.  What kind of education can such individuals impart?  Paradoxically, the RTE Act concentrates all attention on number of teachers per class and physical infrastructure buy pays scant regard to the most vital aspect of education, namely, quality of teaching. Significantly, the RTE Act in Section 7 (6  )  ( b )  blandly and generally states that the Central Government “shall develop and enforce standards for training  of teachers.”  The Act however, has, in Section 23, ratified “relaxation in the minimum qualification required for appointment as a teacher” for up to 5 years, whereas no such concession is granted in relation to physical infrastructure.  Clearly, the RTE Act accords little importance to teaching standards, which is the major shortcoming in our educational system.

The RTE Act is littered with utopian, unworkable statements of good intent. For instance, Section 4 directs that where a child is admitted to a class appropriate to his age, he shall, in order to be at par with others, have a right to receive special training. Section 8 commands the Government “ to ensure compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of elementary education by every child of the age of six to fourteen years.” Section 11 takes the cake and therefore deserves to be fully quoted: “With a view to prepare children above the age of three years for elementary education and to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years, the appropriate government may make necessary arrangement for providing free pre-school education for such children.”  We do not have the wherewithal to provide primary education to all, and yet the Act envisages universal pre-school training facilities also being set up.

In the ultimate analysis, perhaps the only praiseworthy clause in the RTE Act is Section 12 which mandates that every recognised school, even if it is unaided, is obliged to admit in Class 1, to the extent of at least 25% of the strength of the class, children belonging to weaker sections and disadvantaged groups and provide them free and compulsory elementary education.

For too long has good education been a service that only the well to do can buy.  I do not accept the absurd elitist argument that the children from the weaker sections would be misfits or that they would pull down the overall standards.  In an unequal society, where quality education is available only in select schools that have been beyond the reach of the poor and which give their students a head start in all future professional pursuits, it is only appropriate that children from less privileged backgrounds are given exposure to such an education.  That’s what an egalitarian society is all about.  This is a small but important step towards breaking the citadels of privilege that many institutions have become in this country.  It is therefore heartening that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of this proposition in the RTE Act. However, it is disappointing that the Court has also endorsed the impractical and potentially destructive provisions in the Act. There is also the big unanswered question of the fate of the children from the weaker sections after their free elementary education in the elite schools, where the monthly tuition fee would be equal to the annual income of their parents. What is their fate after they attain the age of 14 years? Your  guess is as good asthat of the  Education Ministry which has left this issue open-ended.

How will the implementation of the RTE Act impact the Muslim community which is educationally the most backward of all in the country? According to a survey conducted by the Social and Rural Research Institute, the share of Muslims in the out of school children is 13.05 % against the national average of 9.9%. Unfortunately, the RTE Act will only further widen the gap. At present, Muslims in the cities are mainly segregated in ghettos where, for reasons well-known, there is lack of basic services, especially schools provided by the government/ local authority. As such, Muslim children are largely educated in unrecognised schools that have mushroomed within the ghettos. For instance, there are over 30 unrecognised schools in Jamianagar alone and most of these schools do not possess the “minority school” certificate. While some of these schools may get the certificate, the others will have to shut down for failing to meet the exacting standards laid down. With the few government schools in the neighbourhood already overcrowded, I foresee a large number of Muslim children abandoning schools altogether or reverting to obscurantist madarsa education for want of an option.

(The author, a former civil servant, is Secretary General of Lok Janshakti Party and can be contacted on akhaliq2007@gmail.com)

I praised Maharashtra Govt’s GR issued on 27th April as I believed that Maharashtra government had decided to create a a SECOND LINE OF AUTHORITY for the State Information Commissioner – a full-time “Additional Information Commissioner” who would work under the directions of the new Chief Information Commissioner, who would be appointed by the due process. I thought that they were using Ramanand Tiwari’s suspension as an excuse for this.

Mantralaya insiders and people close to the administration corrected me, saying that vide this GR (http://tinyurl.com/Maha-GR-post-of-Addl-SIC ) the government intends to appoint a FULL-FLEDGED INFORMATION COMMISSIONER, and not just an “Additional Information Commissioner”. If so, then it will weaken the institution. We should all be raising an outcry!

In its introductory part, the GR refers to the suspension of SIC Ramanand Tiwari accused in the Adarsh scam (Details of suspension:http://tinyurl.com/Maha-SIC-Tiwari-Suspension ). The GR mentions that the workload of the Brihanmumbai bench is now being borne by the Amravati bench of the SIC. Lamenting the difficulties caused to the people filing second appeals in Greater Mumbai, the GR argues that there is a need to have a full-time commissioner for Greater Mumbai.

PRESENT STATE OF STATE INFORMATION COMMISSION:

Maharashtra today has FOUR INFO COMMISSIONERS AND FOUR VACANT BENCHES.

• · SIC BHASKAR PATIL, who is State Information Commissioner of Amravati, is the acting Chief Information Commissioner, and he also manages the Greater Mumbai bench.
• · SIC DB DESHPANDE of Aurangabad bench is handling additional charge of Pune bench.
• · SIC MH SHAH of Nashik bench is handling additional charge of Konkan bench, which is in Navi Mumbai.
• · SIC PW PATIL of Nagpur bench is the only one who is not saddled with an additional charge.

Every two weeks, the SICs handling additional charge travel and hold hearings for TWO DAYS IN THE VACANT BENCHES.

The government says that Ramanand Tiwari’s bench (Greater Mumbai) poses legal difficulties until his retirement date of 2 February 2013, as he has challenged his suspension. This matter is pending in court. BUT WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT IS DELAYING APPOINTMENT OF ALL NEW INFORMATION COMMISSIONERS? Ramanand Tiwari cannot be the reason, because info commissioners appointments are not bench-specific.

I believe that currently, NOTHING PREVENTS THE GOVERNMENT FROM SELECTING 6 MORE INFORMATION COMMISSIONERS, plus one chief information commissioner. BENCHES ARE NOT ASSIGNED AT THE TIME OF SELECTION AND APPOINTMENT; after appointment, workload is assigned to each SIC by the Chief Information Commissioner. Any constraints cited for not doing so immediately are only imaginary; they are nothing but excuses.

DANGERS POSED BY THIS GOVT RESOLUTION:

1)      WRONG SECTION OF RTI ACT IS BEING INVOKED. The GR says that the government, using its powers under Section 16(6) of RTI Act, has created an additional post — over and above the ten commissioners specified under Sec 15(2)(b) –  for better implementation of  the RTI Act. Section 16(6) states: “The State Government shall provide the state chief information commissioner and the state information commissioners with such officers and employees as may be necessary for the efficient performance of their functions under this Act, and the salaries and allowances payable to and the terms and conditions of service of the officers and other employees appointed for the purpose of this Act shall be such as may be prescribed.” Section 16(6) is for providing ASSISTANTS TO AN INFORMATION COMMISSIONER; it does not empower the state government to create a new post of information commissioner. If the state tries to do so, it will be bad in law.

2)      CONDITIONS OF SIC’S SELECTION, APPOINTMENT & SERVICE CAN’T BE MODIFIED BY GR. They are already defined by the RTI Act (download this: http://tinyurl.com/RTI-Act-2005-Wordfile ). RTI Act is a central law. This GR is a mere notification issued by the state govt; it can only be issued for implementing the letter and spirit of the Act. A state information commissioner can only be selected and appointed as per section 15 or the RTI Act; this cannot be redefined by a GR. And his service conditions are dictated by Section 16; this also cannot be defined by a GR. As per Section 16(1), the term of office of the SIC is five years, or until attainment of 65 years of age, whichever is sooner. He can only be dismissed as per Section 17. But the GR says that this newly created office will cease to exist on 2/2/2013 i.e. the tenure of this SIC will end on that date; this is a violation of Section 16 and 17.

3)      THE CREATURE OF THIS GR DOES NOT HAVE THE POWERS OF SIC. If a “State Information Commissioner” is selected and appointed as per this GR, then he is not really part of the Information Commission as defined by the RTI Act; he can at best be a member of the STAFF OR SECRETARIAT. As such, he cannot exercise the powers given to the Information Commission under the Act. He cannot independently hold hearings, pass orders, etc. exercising the powers outlined under Section 18, 19 and 20. As he is not really a creature of the RTI Act, but only a creature of this GR, he has no jurisdiction to hold any hearings. No section of the Act allows the Chief Information Commissioner or any Information Commissioner to delegate his powers; they can only delegate tasks, but not the discretionary, civil-court-like and judge-like powers inherent in sections 18, 19 and 20. Besides challenging the appointment of an SIC appointed under this GR, anybody can challenge his orders and other decisions in High Court.

CONCLUSION: Through this GR, if the government is using Section 16(6) to sidestep the stringent requirements of the RTI Act for appointing Information Commissioners, then this is a dangerous precedent. IT MAY BE USED TO UNILATERALLY SELECT CANDIDATES WITHOUT THE THREE-MEMBER COMMITTEE OUTLINED IN SECTION 15(3). Naked favouritism may happen. If we remain silent at this stage, this bad example will be followed by other state governments in the years to come.

RTI Act is already suffering from tooth decay because of nepotistic appointments of information commissioners who are unwilling to penalize errant public information officers. This GR is likely to spread the rot by creating huge cavities in Maharashtra State Information Commission.

Why are the stalwarts of the RTI movement in Maharashtra keeping quiet? Itna sannata kyon hai bhai???

(Krishnaraj Rao is a prominent Right-to-Information activist and journalist based in Mumbai. He can be reached at thebravepedestrian@gmail.com)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy. 

The UP Assembly elections results (Feb 2012) gave a clear mandate to the Samajvadi Party of Mulayam Singh. Congress was claiming that the results of UP will be a shocker, meaning a surprisingly better performance of Congress. As results came through Congress was nowhere close the claims it made or the results it expected were nowhere close to the expectation. Prior to the elections the main leaders of UP Congress with Rahul Gandhi in the lead, campaigned vigorously. The carrot of reservations for Muslims was dangled and the Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s tears on Batla house encounter were on display, but it seems the Muslim voters in particular were not impressed. So far Congress had a very safe equation with the Muslim voters, also called ‘Muslim vote bank’ by its critics. The understanding was that since Muslims know that communal BJP is not the option where will they go except voting for the ‘secular’ Congress.

Where do matters stand? It is true that large section of Muslims realize the BJP can never be the option for Muslims as BJP is the epitome of Communal politics, it is the political child of RSS, which is working for the agenda of Hindu Rashtra through its multiple progeny like VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasis Kalyan Ashram and myriad other organizations. In communal violence while the Congress has played despicable role in anti Sikh riots of 1984, it has also been the mute witness to the series of anti Muslim riots and pogrom against Muslims.  The justice to the victims of violence has not been actively pursued by the Congress, wherever it has been the ruling formation, Mumbai violence of 1992-93 being the worst example of ignoring and marginalizing the victims of carnage. The Muslims have also suffered at the hands of Congress ruled Governments in the aftermath of acts of terror, particularly those of Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Ajmer and Samjhauta express blasts. In the aftermath of the blasts Muslim youth were arrested, tortured, their carriers as young men crushed and later they released for the lack of any credible evidence whatsoever.

Still despite all these lapses Muslim community has realized that Congress is a lesser evil, more particularly after the Gujarat anti Muslim pogrom under the leadership of Narendra Modi, where the transformation of a democratic set up to a semi fascist Hindu rashtra is more than visible. They have also seen that the real culprits of bomb blasts mentioned above belonged to the RSS pantheon, for which BJP made all the efforts to shield them.

This distinction between Congress and BJP seems to be more or less clear and when one reflects on the acts of commission and omission of NDA Government at the centre between 1998 and 2004.Having kept aside the BJP as an electoral option what happens to Congress claim to be a secular party or the one committed to interests of minorities. There is a mixed bag here. On one side Congress has instituted Sachar Committee and Rangnath Mishra Commission, which have given the true picture of the plight of Muslims. At the same time the implementation of the recommendations of these reports is too slow, if at all. The intimidated Muslim minority is looking for policies which can lift it up from the stifling atmosphere of ghettoes in which they have been forced to live due to the massive communal violence and the preceding and accompanying demonization of the community in the social space. A large section of community wants quotas, but putting it as an electoral promise cannot fool the community, which is seeing the dismal fate of Sachar Committee and Rangnath Misra Commission.

The Batla House encounter, the refusal of the UPA II Government to institute a proper inquiry into it and the accompanying demonization of Muslim youth was a big blow to the community which is struggling against odds to come out of ghettoization and wishes to embrace modern education and take advantage of opportunities to the best of its capabilities, which at present are not adequate to pull it out of the morass in which it is trapped. This Batla House encounter and the negative attitude of the Congress for a proper inquiry committee showed that Congress does not have courage to take up the issue of security of Muslims in the right earnest. Mere tears don’t protect you. The event in the neighboring Rajasthan, where the police entered the mosque and opened the fire to kill those inside was also something which cannot be pardoned at all.

Congress seems be a mixed platform and a pragmatic party as far as the principles of secularism are concerned. It will go this far and refuse to take the decisive steps for principled democratic-secular values. One knows that the state apparatus has also been heavily communalized and it takes a strong will power to take up principled secular stand and to live up to that. In UP it seems the Muslim voters had the choice between Mulayam Singh and Congress. Mulayam had also temporarily allied with Kalyan Singh, who had presided over the demolition of Babri mosque, but that was a brief alliance. Riots in Mau and other places had erupted during the Mulayam regime. Here surely Mulayam must have sounded like the lesser evil vis a vis BJP or Congress.

Is this the same Congress, which had the glorious tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Pundit Nehru, who staked their all for preservation of secular values? With the present dithering attitude of the Congress leadership such claims are nowhere close to acceptable. Many a Congress youth are also much communalized. One does not know whether this grand old party, is making its workers know about what secularism is, what is the truth behind the prevalent biases against minorities; how Gandhi (Mohandas) had ensured the Hindu-Muslim unity by staking his life and how Jawaharlal stood like a rock supporting the edifice of plural values. A party is made by the workers and their mindset. While leadership dithers on such issues the workers, by and large have no clue as to how to take up the issues of Muslim minorities, battered by the onslaught of communal violence and communal politics. UP Assembly election results apart from other things are a pointer for the party to take up the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, if it wants to make a positive contribution to Indian democracy.

(Ram Puniyani was a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai and works keenly on social issues. He is the author of three books including Communal Politics: An illustrated primer.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy.

Of all the Muslim rulers who ruled vast territories of India from 712 to 1857 CE, probably no one has received as much condemnation from Western and Hindu writers as Aurangzeb. He has been castigated as a religious Muslim who was anti-Hindu, who taxed them, who tried to convert them, who discriminated against them in awarding high administrative positions, and who interfered in their religious matters. This view has been heavily promoted in the government approved textbooks in schools and colleges across post-partition India (i.e., after 1947). These are fabrications against one of the best rulers of India who was pious, scholarly, saintly, un-biased, liberal, magnanimous, tolerant, competent, and far-sighted.

Fortunately, in recent years quite a few Hindu historians have come out in the open disputing those allegations. For example, historian Babu Nagendranath Banerjee rejected the accusation of forced conversion of Hindus by Muslim rulers by stating that if that was their intention then in India today there would not be nearly four times as many Hindus compared to Muslims, despite the fact that Muslims had ruled for nearly a thousand years. Banerjee challenged the Hindu hypothesis that Aurangzeb was anti-Hindu by reasoning that if the latter were truly guilty of such bigotry, how could he appoint a Hindu as his military commander-in-chief? Surely, he could have afforded to appoint a competent Muslim general in that position. Banerjee further stated: “No one should accuse Aurangzeb of being communal minded. In his administration, the state policy was formulated by Hindus. Two Hindus held the highest position in the State Treasury. Some prejudiced Muslims even questioned the merit of his decision to appoint non-Muslims to such high offices. The Emperor refuted that by stating that he had been following the dictates of the Shariah (Islamic Law) which demands appointing right persons in right positions.” During Aurangzeb’s long reign of fifty years, many Hindus, notably Jaswant Singh, Raja Rajrup, Kabir Singh, Arghanath Singh, Prem Dev Singh, Dilip Roy, and Rasik Lal Crory, held very high administrative positions. Two of the highest ranked generals in Aurangzeb’s administration, Jaswant Singh and Jaya Singh, were Hindus. Other notable Hindu generals who commanded a garrison of two to five thousand soldiers were Raja Vim Singh of Udaypur, Indra Singh, Achalaji and Arjuji. One wonders if Aurangzeb was hostile to Hindus, why would he position all these Hindus to high positions of authority, especially in the military, who could have mutinied against him and removed him from his throne?

Most Hindus like Akbar over Aurangzeb for his multi-ethnic court where Hindus were favored. Historian Shri Sharma states that while Emperor Akbar had fourteen Hindu Mansabdars (high officials) in his court, Aurangzeb actually had 148 Hindu high officials in his court. (Ref: Mughal Government) But this fact is somewhat less known.

Some of the Hindu historians have accused Aurangzeb of demolishing Hindu Temples. How factual is this accusation against a man, who has been known to be a saintly man, a strict adherent of Islam? The Qur’an prohibits any Muslim to impose his will on a non-Muslim by stating that “There is no compulsion in religion.” (surah al-Baqarah 2:256). The surah al-Kafirun clearly states: “To you is your religion and to me is mine.” It would be totally unbecoming of a learned scholar of Islam of his caliber, as Aurangzeb was known to be, to do things that are contrary to the dictates of the Qur’an.

Interestingly, the 1946 edition of the history textbook Etihash Parichaya (Introduction to History) used in Bengal for the 5th and 6th graders states: “If Aurangzeb had the intention of demolishing temples to make way for mosques, there would not have been a single temple standing erect in India. On the contrary, Aurangzeb donated huge estates for use as Temple sites and support thereof in Benares, Kashmir and elsewhere. The official documentations for these land grants are still extant.”

A stone inscription in the historic Balaji or Vishnu Temple, located north of Chitrakut Balaghat, still shows that it was commissioned by the Emperor himself. The proof of Aurangzeb’s land grant for famous Hindu religious sites in Kasi, Varanasi can easily be verified from the deed records extant at those sites. The same textbook reads: “During the fifty year reign of Aurangzeb, not a single Hindu was forced to embrace Islam. He did not interfere with any Hindu religious activities.” (p. 138) Alexander Hamilton, a British historian, toured India towards the end of Aurangzeb’s fifty year reign and observed that every one was free to serve and worship God in his own way.

Now let us deal with Aurangzeb’s imposition ofthe jizya tax which had drawn severe criticism from many Hindu historians. It is true that jizya was lifted during the reign of Akbar and Jahangir and that Aurangzeb later reinstated this. Before I delve into the subject of Aurangzeb’s jizya tax, or taxing the non-Muslims, it is worthwhile to point out that jizya is nothing more than a war tax which was collected only from able-bodied young non-Muslim male citizens living in a Muslim country who did not want to volunteer for the defense of the country. That is, no such tax was collected from non-Muslims who volunteered to defend the country. This tax was not collected from women, and neither from immature males nor from disabled or old male citizens. For payment of such taxes, it became incumbent upon the Muslim government to protect the life, property and wealth of its non-Muslim citizens. If for any reason the government failed to protect its citizens, especially during a war, the taxable amount was returned.

It should be pointed out here that zakat (2.5% of savings) and ‘ushr(10% of agricultural products) were collected from all Muslims, who owned some wealth (beyond a certain minimum, called nisab). They also paid sadaqah, fitrah, and khums. None of these were collected from any non-Muslim. As a matter of fact, the per capita collection from Muslims was several fold that of non-Muslims. Further to Auranzeb’s credit is his abolition of a lot of taxes, although this fact is not usually mentioned. In his book Mughal Administration, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, foremost historian on the Mughal dynasty, mentions that during Aurangzeb’s reign in power, nearly sixty-five types of taxes were abolished, which resulted in a yearly revenue loss of fifty million rupees from the state treasury.

While some Hindu historians are retracting the lies, the textbooks and historic accounts in Western countries have yet to admit their error and set the record straight. (Courtesy: Albalagh)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy.

The serious (and not so-serious) claims and counter-claims made by Azam Khan, a senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and the so-called Shahi Imam of Delhi’s historic Jama Masjid, Ahmad Bukhari, on ‘Muslim representation’ in post-election scenario in Uttar Pradesh (UP) can be interpreted in two possible ways. One may argue, in fact quite justifiably, that these polemical comments simply reflect the post-poll tussle between two rival Muslim elites to secure a wider acceptability in SP dominated UP politics. However, there could be another plausible approach to interpret this ‘media-centric’ debate. We may problematize these statements to raise a few very significant issues such as: do Muslims actually vote for a particular party because they are ‘instructed’ by religious elites such as the Imam to do so? Or, do Muslims vote for a party because they follow the ‘advices’ given to them by elected Muslim representatives? If we go beyond these first level questions, we might also ask two larger conceptual questions: Do Muslims need to be represented by Muslims? If yes, what could be the appropriate relationship between the acts of Muslim representatives and aspirations of Muslim communities?

Bukhari-Khan controversy, in my view, can help us in unpacking these complicated questions. In the first week of April 2012, Bukhari, who had already campaigned for SP in the assembly election in UP, quite unexpectedly decided to withdraw his son-in-law’s candidature for the UP Vidhan Parisahd. In a much publicized open letter, he alleged SP establishment for not providing ‘adequate Muslim political representation’ at various levels. He said: ‘the rights of Muslims cannot be satisfied by giving a seat to my son-in-law. If you do not give a fair share to Muslims in administration and power, I turn down the offer made for my son-in-law.’ According to Azam Khan, Bukhari actually wanted a Rajya Sabha seat for his younger brother and cabinet slot for his son-in-law. Questioning the political reputation of Bukhari, Khan said: ‘His son-in-law Umar Ali Khan, who contested on a SP ticket from the Behat seat of Saharanpur… lost his deposit. This clearly indicates the credibility of Bukhari. He should now realize the status he ‘enjoys’ amongst the Muslims…these peshwas have done little for the betterment of the community. Instead of seeking political favors, clerics should stick to their job.’

One can identify an interesting interplay between two sets of claims here: (a) Muslims of UP constitute a political community because they are fully aware of and adhere to a set of issues that could be called ‘Muslim issues’. (b) Religious/social leaders and representatives of this political community are entitled to take short-term and long term decisions in favor of Muslims. Azam Khan, it seems, share the first assumption with Bukhari. He does not make any comment on the Muslim political homogeneity that Bukhari evokes. In fact, his assertions also originate from the premise that Muslim community is a political entity of a specific kind. However, Khan’s criticism of Bukhari’s leadership claim is quite significant. Khan, in this sense, makes a clear distinction between the domain of actual politics and the domain of religiosity- a distinction that has been dominating the modern south Asian Muslim politics for a long time.

Let us look at some concrete evidences to evaluate the first set of arguments that revolves around the notion of Muslim political homogeneity. The recent UP election is quite relevant in this regard. As per the official figures, 29.15% votes went to SP. If we deconstruct this official data by comparing it with the CSDS-Lokniti post-poll data based on sample survey, a few very interesting findings come up.

We find that although SP enjoyed a sizeable Muslim support (39%), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also performed well among Muslims. It received around 20% votes. Even the Congress manages to get 18% Muslim votes. These figures demonstrate the fact that ‘Muslim vote’ was highly diversified. The Muslim caste configuration is also relevant here. Our data shows that around 41% upper-caste Muslim (Ashraf) votes went to SP. The Congress (26%) and BSP (12%) also received a significant Ashraf support. Although the SP also got 38% non-Ashraf votes, the performance of BSP is quite noticeable among non-Ashrafs. It secured 26% non-Ashraf Muslim votes. While the Congress managed to get only 11% non-Ashraf votes. This clearly shows that the inclination of upper-caste Muslims towards SP and Congress is higher compared to lower- caste Muslims. This Muslim political diversity, I suggest, exposes the emptiness of the Muslim homogeneity argument that Bukhari and Azam Khan propose.

The State of Nation survey (SONS) by CSDS-Lokniti on India’s Muslims (2006) can help us in assessing the second set of issues that the Bukhri-Khan controversy raises. For the sake of clarity, let us look at three kinds of questions: what are the Muslims issues? Who is responsible for the present crisis of Muslims? And, what could be the way out?

We find that poverty and unemployment are identified as the most important Muslim issues (69%). Instead of Hindu communalism or lack of religious freedom, majority of the respondents (60%) feel that the government is responsible for the present situation of Muslims in India. In fact, 16% Muslims say that the Muslims themselves are responsible for the present predicaments of the community. Affirmative action policies are considered as the possible way out to get rid of socio-economic backwardness. The majority of Muslims strongly support the view that Muslims must have some kind of reservation in education institution (72%) as well as in the Parliament and state assemblies (82%). Interestingly, these overtly socio-political demands are not addressed to Muslim elites. In fact, the question of Muslim leadership was not at all given any considerable importance. Only 4% respondents find that the ‘lack of right kind of Muslim leadership’ has been a problem for Muslims in this country. On the basis of these findings, it is suffice to suggest that the question of Muslim leadership is not a fundamental issue for Muslims at all. On the contrary, Muslims, like other deprived and marginalized sections of society, seem to recognize the state as a reference point for making political claims.

Can we, therefore, say that Muslims in India do not want to be represented by Muslim political and/or religious elites? I do not think that this complicated question can be answered merely on the basis of evidences/data we have discussed here. It requires a systematic exploration of a different kind by which we can make sense of the contextual placing of Muslims elites in the socio-cultural universe of Muslims communities. Yet, we can certainly argue that Muslim participation in different forms of politics should be taken seriously to understand the multiplicity of the political representation debates. If we continue to pose the question of Muslim political representation in the present form, it would be very difficult for us to move away from the kind of arguments people like Azam Khan and Bukhari make.

(The writer is an Associate Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi.) 

The month of April was different. Within a span of few days there were campaigns over two issues in the Social Media about which the mainstream media was silent and quite surprisingly the Social Media had the final say both the times.

In a country where politicians rule the roost and the office of the president is above all questions, the netizens fought tooth and nail, and made a difference. At first they brought about the downfall of Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi and then forced our honorable President to give back the land which she wanted for her post retirement settlement.

The mainstream media was silent on both the issues. Not one mainstream news channel or newspaper did a story on the two issues but still Singhvi had to resign and Patil had to forego the land. While the Indian mainstream media is busy with the likes of Nirmal Baba, the Social Media is abuzz with voices of change. A much needed change!

This has not happened for the first time, even before this Social media has been used to raise issues not being raised by the mainstream media. However, the difference this time was in the stature of the people against whom the campaign was run. Singhvi has since resigned from the post of spokesperson of the ruling Congress. Rather, forced to do so would be more appropriate. Never in the history of Indian politics had it ever happened that a politician had to call a press conference over an issue being discussed in the virtual world and subsequently submit his resignation. By calling a press conference Singhvi gave the final stamp of authenticity to the power of Social Media.

“This can happen to anyone and if this lawlessness is allowed to continue as it is, we all will be consumed shortly,” he said. It was more of a warning to the others that if the social media is not brought under the clutches of those in power then any person can meet the same fate as him. This might have made a few afraid but it sent a wave of excitement across the virtual world. If they can bring about the downfall of a politician using their computers, laptops and smart phones then the netizens will be more than willing to oblige.

He also said that “An organized gang has been purposely used by motivated interests to use the social sites for sensationalism and permanent damage,” but he forgot that this is not a group of illiterate zealots being paid to do what they are doing. The people who did the damage were mostly well off, literate and were doing so without expectation of gaining anything out of it. There is nothing like an organized gang in the virtual world, it’s all too discrete to be so.

Singhvi’s resignation from Parliamentary and Party posts and Patil’s decision to forgo the army land in Pune have made the netiznes believe that they can make the difference. Now they know that even if the mainstream media is silent and the court of law is in favor of those who wield power, then also there is one platform where their voice will be heard. With an estimated 46 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) of Facebook and 16 million Twitter users in India the audience is huge. All one needs to do is to speak up.

With every passing day more and more people are realizing the importance of Social Media as a tool for Social change. Those in power will try their best to bring social media under control but netizens will keep coming up with new and innovative ways to showcase their dissent. Who will win this battle only time will tell but the first round for sure goes to Indian netizens.

(Ankit is an engineer turned activist. After completing his B.Tech in 2009 he joined IT industry but left that for activism in Feb 2012 and joined Magsaysay award winner and anti corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal.)